Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team

Rycroft was a contestant during the first season of the CMT reality TV series Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team. As the first season concluded, Rycroft was selected as one of the 35 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (DCC) for the 2006 NFL season. Rycroft remained on the DCC squad through the 2007 NFL season till quitting later in the season. Rycroft cites her reasons for quitting the squad as being related to her depression over her on again--off again relationship with her now husband, Tye Strickland.

The Bachelor

Rycroft appeared on the 13th season of The Bachelor as one of the 25 bachelorettes vying for the heart of The Bachelor, Jason Mesnick. In the season finale, Mesnick chose Rycroft over runner-up, Molly Malaney, and proposed to her. Rycroft accepted and said she was the "happiest woman in the world." However, following the episode, ABC aired the After the Final Rose (Part One) episode, which was taped six weeks after the season finale episode. It was then, in a historic moment for the Bachelor, and in front of millions of viewers, that Mesnick revealed that he was breaking up with Rycroft, leaving her visibly devastated. Rycroft would later reveal in her memoirs that the televised breakup was greatly humiliating.

Dancing with the Stars

Rycroft took the place of then-Access Hollywood host Nancy O'Dell on the eighth season of Dancing with the Stars after O'Dell withdrew from the competition due to an injury sustained during pre-season practice. Rycroft was partnered with professional dancer Tony Dovolani. She tied for second place for week one's performances. On May 19, 2009, Rycroft finished third on the Dancing with the Stars finale. .

Rycroft returned to the show in its fifteenth season as one of the "All-Stars" contestants. She was again partnered with Tony Dovolani. This time, Rycroft and Dovolani became the season champions on the November 27, 2012 results show, winning the coveted mirror ball trophy.

Dancing with the Stars Performances

Week #

Dance/Song

Judges' score

Result

Inaba

Goodman

Tonioli

1

Foxtrot/ "Big Spender"

7.0

7.0

7.0

Safe

2

Jive / "Shout"

8.0

8.0

7.5

Safe

3

Samba / "Conga"

9.0

9.0

9.0

Safe

4

Jitterbug / "This Cat's On A Hot Tin Roof"

9.0

9.0

9.5* / 9.5

Safe

5

Tango / "Toxic" Team Freestyle (Shawn) / "Call Me Maybe"

9.09.5

9.010.0

9.010.0

No Elimination

6

Viennese Waltz / "Why Ya Wanna" Group Country Western / "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" & "I Play Chicken with a Train"

Other shows

Rycroft and Chris Harrison co-hosted season one of the ABC reality show Bachelor Pad, which began airing August 9, 2010. Her CMT reality show Melissa & Tye, made under the working title, Melissa and Tye: A New Reality, follows Rycroft moving to Los Angeles to pursue her Hollywood career while managing a long-distance relationship with her husband, Tye Strickland. CMT dropped the show because of very low ratings, though the show had been popular with Rycroft's fans.

Personal life

Rycroft was briefly engaged to Jason Mesnick, whom she met on The Bachelor. Mesnick called the engagement off after he admitted he was still in love with runner-up, Molly Malaney. Rycroft and Mesnick also explained that the relationship was strained and entirely different off camera. Emotionally shattered, returned to Tye Strickland, whom she had had a casual relationship on and off with for a number of years. Rycroft later admitted in her memoir that she had always been in love with Tye Strickland, and only was prompted to appear on Bachelor by Strickland's repeated rejections of her pleas for a more committed relationship. Furthermore, Rycroft explained that the Bachelor show was set up to disorient participants, creating a pseudo reality where beautiful surroundings, glamour, and vacation settings serve to make women fall haplessly in love with the bachelor. Rycroft coined this condition as "The Bachelor Bubble." In June 2009 she announced via Twitter that she and Strickland were engaged. They married on December 12, 2009, in Mexico.

On October 20, 2010, Rycroft announced on CBS's The Talk that she was pregnant and was having a baby girl. On February 16, 2011, she gave birth to the couple's first child, daughter Ava Grace Strickland.It seemed that Melissa Rycroft had finally found her own fairly tale ending. But it was not to be so, when Rycroft reluctantly revealed she had been suffering from a particularly painful case of post partum beginning almost immediately after Ava Grace's birth. Rycroft made headlines again when she revealed she was under physicians' care for the ailment. Rycroft explained that she had taken pains to hide her condition from everyone except for Ava's father, due to an unwillingness at ever being "compared to Andrea Yates." Rycroft was adamant that she not be compared to Yates, and said the distinction between herself and "woman like Yates" was that Rycroft "never wanted to hurt her child." Rycroft further explained that in her depression, she felt a great "emptiness," and that "nothing was cause for happiness any longer." Rycroft declines further discussion on her PPD, and simply explains she is in recovery.